[fic XMM] Count (the Burn) Down (The Stop, Drop and Roll Remix)
I was thrilled when I received my Remix assignment, in part because there were so many fantastic stories I could rewrite, and in part because Ion Bond wrote that fantastic Remix for me last year, and I was absolutely giddy with the chance to do a story in return.
There are actually two versions of the original story, "Countdown", one in reverse (like the Remix) and one in chronological order. I like them both a lot, but one of the things I liked most about the reverse version is that the story starts with Pyro and peels away layers of him until he's just John again. As I've said many times before, one of the reasons I like Pyro in the movieverse so much is because of his identity issues, and the way he wants to be one thing and doesn't want to be another and, in reality, he's both and even more.
Title: Count (the Burn) Down (The Stop, Drop, and Roll Remix)
Author: Carla (escritoireazul)
Summary: Pyro’s been waiting his whole life.
Rating: 17+ for language
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Warnings: language, het, slash
Spoilers: Through X2
Title, Author and URL of original story: Countdown by Ion Bond, written for remix_redux
V.
The studded lip fucking hurts when she smashes her mouth into his.
Pyro doesn’t know her name.
Really, that’s the last thing on his mind, when her hands are under his shirt, her nails scraping across his stomach. He can feel the heat of his skin warm her, until her fingers are hot enough to scald.
She presses him up against a tree, grinds his back against the bark. He might be bleeding beneath his shirt, but he doesn’t care, he can’t, not when she dips her hand into his pants, her fingers scrabbling over the button fly and the zipper.
“Fuck,” he hisses into her mouth when her hand closes around him, and she jams her tongue between his teeth. She’s pierced there, too, and it’s shockingly cold for approximately one and a half seconds.
Then it’s hot, it’s all so fucking hot they’re fucking steaming, and her hand is slick against him, and his dick is on fire. She bites his lip, rubs their faces together, the metal in hers scraping against him, and her thumb presses down against the tip of his dick, rubs a fire circle.
There, in the middle of the forest, all the trees so immanently flammable, all ready to go up in a burst, a flash fire, the mutants gather, so many of them, so ready for anything, ready for the big grand plans.
Pyro fingers his lighter, presses his teeth against her throat, breaths steam and liquid flame against her skin. He can hear the others, milling and posturing and all waiting for the sign, their fucking messiah to raise his hands and send them out into the world, individual bits of kindling all waiting to be lit.
He comes so hard, burns so hot there should be lava everywhere, a fucking river of it, but she hangs on, jerks at him until he’s soft and weak and the only reason he stays upright is because he’s caught between her and the tree, ancient wood ready to burn and her pieces of metal and flesh.
“Gotta light?” she asks, wipes her hand clean on the bottom of his shirt..
“Dude,” Pyro says, and grins, and reaches for her pants, tugs open the button and slips his hand inside, “do I ever.”
IV.
Mystique scares the fucking crap out of him.
Doesn’t stop him from getting hard every time she walks by, and it doesn’t stop him from staring, sometimes out of the corner of his eyes, sometimes overtly, every time she breathes, because her chest rises and falls so nice, those breasts of hers full and heavy and she’s naked, she’s always fucking naked, even when she looks like she’s wearing clothes, she’s not, it’s just her skin, changeable, bare.
It probably makes it better, the fear, because she could kick his ass any time she wanted, could take him out before he even got his lighter open, and he probably wouldn’t even try to stop her so long as she touched him, put her hands on his body.
Certainly helps pass the time, that razor edge between attraction and terror. Otherwise it’s pretty boring here, the only screams are from the little kids playing in the street, fake fear and impotent anger insubstantial like the shadows.
Magneto always goes to buy the groceries, and he’s dumb about it, almost every time he goes after lunch and that’s siesta time or something. There aren’t even any cars outside the cement wall; except for the kids, who never take a break, the whole world sounds dead.
The old man’s gonna come home empty handed and pissed off. Pyro can’t wait. It’s fucking hilarious, the little things which set him off, and it’s really, really hot when he picks a fight with Mystique. They don’t even really fight, she just stares at him, all insolent, her body stretched out and languid.
She doesn’t rest either, he knows, she’s a big scary cat and she could take off their heads at any moment. That’s why it’s so hot.
Sweat drips down his chest and back, collects at the waistband of his jeans. The sun is high and blistering, but the garden still feels like an oasis. It could be anywhere, protected by the high walls, and maybe that’s why they’re there, where they could be other places, all places, nowhere at all, it’s all the same.
Pyro’s alone with Mystique, and he likes that just fine. She’s reading a book, even though the sunlight bouncing off the pages is enough to blind him from across the table. There’s a beer sitting in front of her, local stuff, and the iron table feels hot enough to make it boil.
“Mind if I smoke?” Pyro asks, and pulls out a half-crushed pack from his pocket. It’s slightly damp, and mostly crumpled though the cigarettes aren’t broken.
Mystique puts down her book, sets it open across her lap. No wonder the spine looks almost broken. She watches him for a second, her face expressionless, her eyes-the same color as her beer-narrowed. “Knock yourself out. Do I look like your mom?”
He pulls out a cigarette and puts it between his lips, his movements slow. He thinks about staring at her outright, just watching her, letting his eyes linger on her breasts. If she stretched at all, leaned toward him, did anything except fucking look at him, he would, but she’s scariest when she watches him, like she knows him, like she can read his mind, like there’s not a goddamn thing he can do that she hasn’t already done.
Like he’s a kid, whether she looks like his mom or not.
(Which, for the record, she doesn’t. His mom was boring and normal and plain. No matter how Mystique looks, woman or man, she’s none of those things. She’ll never be those things, could never be those things, even if she tried.
Someday he’s going to learn her tricks.)
Instead he flicks his lighter, takes a deep drag, and, when she picks up her book again at last, casts a quick glance at her breasts out of the corner of his eyes. He already knows he’ll think about this tonight, when she’s in her room, and he’s half draped out his window to catch a fucking breeze.
In his mind, it will go different, he’ll be different, he’ll be suave and dominant and he’ll know just how to seduce her so he can fuck her across the table. He’ll see this eyes, those Corona-colored eyes, in his mind when he comes.
“Thanks,” he says, and if she thinks he’s talking about letting him smoke, well, it’s probably better that way.
III.
John fucking hates Rogue. What the hell kind of name is that anyway, Rogue? Shit, he’s seen more creative things on Saturday morning cartoons. He hates her stupid accent, all those long vowels, and he hates those crappy white streaks in her hair, which could be covered with dye but no, she thinks she’s so goddamn special, and he really, really hates the way she touches Bobby. As if she couldn’t kill him with a kiss, as if she has a right.
He sucks deep on his cigarette, holds the smoke inside until his lungs burn. He’d like to set her on fire, pour some of it down her throat until she can’t talk anymore, until she can’t look all fragile and shit, and make Bobby want to protect her.
Bobby coughs, blows on his fingers until they’re frosted with white, and pinches his cigarette. Once it’s out, he throws it on the ground, and then glances around real quick, like they’re gonna get caught.
“Shit.” John kicks the dirt. “That’s one long-ass butt. What a waste, what a goddamn waste. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Bobby?”
“Maybe I don’t want to get lung cancer,” Bobby says, all defensive and shit. He snags an arm around Rogue’s waist and glares at John. “You ever think of that?”
“Baby, I cause lung cancer,” John throws his head back, careful not to crack his skull on the brick wall. He shouldn’t have said that, he can see the way Bobby tenses, but he didn’t mean it like that, it just came out.
He knows that’s not the way they are - the way they were, because Bobby’s sure around a lot less since Rogue showed up.
“You already gave him the cigarette. He wasn’t going to give it back. You wouldn’t even want it then, he slobbers all over the end.” Marie shoves at Bobby, puts her elbow in his side. She plays rough, that girl, and what does she know about Bobby or his slobber or what John wants. “What do you care if he’s too much of a wimp to smoke the whole thing?”
“Whatever.” John snaps his Zippo open and shut, open and shut. “He just does it to make me mad.”
Bobby frowns at him, pulls out the old little boy lost face, the who, me? expression. Like he doesn’t know what he’s done, what he does every single time he puts his arm around Rogue. Every time he talks about her as if John gives a flying fuck.
“It’s not all about you,” Rogue says, and sighs. Her breath is filled with smoke, visible in the air like it’s cold, like she’s just kissed Bobby.
John will never tell a fucking soul, but he loves that, the freeze, the way his breath steams when it meets Bobby’s, the way Bobby can cool him down and make it so hot at the same time.
“Whatever,” he says again, and squeezes his lighter until it hurts.
Rogue snorts and stubs out her cigarette. She’s smoked it all the way to the filter, no wasted fire and paper and tobacco there. “I mean it. You probably have some kind of complex, though. You should look into that. Maybe Dr. Grey can help. She needs to stay busy.”
There’s a quick expression he can’t read, some twist of her face. He doesn’t know what or why, but it sure looks kind of the way he feels whenever she touches Bobby, just her thin glove between them to keep him safe.
“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” John says, and lights another cigarette, keeps the flame going for awhile. He likes to watch his lighter burn. “So glad you’re here to impart your vast wisdom.”
Bobby smiles at her, squeezes her waist. “Not possible. Only rich kids have complexes.” He looks past her, meets John’s eyes. “Right, Pyro?”
As if Bobby knows anything about not being rich. As if Bobby knows anything about him. “Damn straight,” John says, his thumb on his flint.
II.
That Drake kid is so damn annoying John doesn’t know what to do with him. He’s finally ditched him, though, left him in the library, and now he’s hiding behind the greenhouse, alone at last, trying real hard not to cough.
The cigarette smoke is thick and clings to him when he exhales, like it likes him or something.
The school sucks, he already knows that, and he’s not going to make any friends. He doesn’t want to make any friends, especially since the only guy who talked to him is that stupid Drake with his stupid ice tricks.
(A cool soda would taste so good right now, but John doesn’t let himself think about that too long. He’s enjoying his cigarette, it tastes great, he loves to smoke. He does.)
When he left, he didn’t want to be at home anymore, but he’s sorry he burned his bridges back there, real and imaginary, because he really doesn’t want to be here, either. Here stinks, all shiny, clean, and fake.
He sees Dr. Grey - the hot teacher, and he almost told her she had a great ass the first time he saw her, wanted to, wanted to set himself up right away as this cool tough guy, but he just couldn’t do it - through the glass.
She’s heading in his direction, walking fast, and he throws the cigarette at the ground. No one said anything about not smoking, but he’s pretty sure it’s one of those implied rules.
He tries to wave the smoke away, but she turns around all of a sudden, heads back toward the mansion like she forgot something. Finally, he’s gotten lucky, just a little bit.
It’s a nice thought, getting lucky with her, but he doesn’t focus on it. If he did, he’d have to find some private place to take care of himself, and he doesn’t have his own room here. Not that he had one back home, either, but at least his mom and her boyfriends weren’t around very often.
Dr. Grey must not have noticed him, he’ll have to remember this hiding place. He picks up the cigarette, and it’s still burning. His fingertips tingle, and he could pull the fire out of it, make it something bigger.
Instead he puts the tip to his lips and tries to inhale without coughing. Smoking tastes good, he tells himself.
Don’t make it a habit.
Shit, now he’s hearing things. He shakes his head, but there’s nothing else foreign in his thoughts.
He can pretend, anyway, all sorts of things.
I.
“You stink.” Anthony Perry pushes him. “Move over.”
John pulls his sleeping bag tighter around his body. He can’t go far, there’s a big coffee table at his back, and he doesn’t really want to get up off the clean white carpet in Keith Frye’s living room. It’s a birthday party, all night long, and he’s had a good time, even if few of the other kids talk to him much.
“What’s wrong?” Keith’s mom asks. John doesn’t know when she came into the room, but she’s standing near them, and the light is at her back so he can’t see her face.
“His sleeping bag smells weird,” Anthony whines and John wants to hit him.
“You smell weird!” Something smells bad, like when he burns the plastic off his mom’s cigarette packs with her lighter and it melts into a twisted mess. He’s burning up, can almost feel blisters on his hands.
“Do not! You stink!” Anthony shoves him again, and John pushes back, but Keith’s mom is right there.
“Hey, there’s plenty of room, let’s all spread out a little,” she says, and she looks so clean and smells so good that John wants to listen to her. She has a nice smile, and when she turns it on him, he can’t imagine saying no.
John’s mom is smoking when she picks him up, her favorites are Camels, but she’ll smoke anything if she has no choice. She watches him in quick little glances when he tells her about Anthony, and she stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray before he’s done.
“Good for you, sticking up for yourself,” she says, but she looks kind of guilty.
The whole car stinks of smoke, too, and John rolls his window down, and then has her roll them all down, but that doesn’t help.
When John sees Anthony at school, he smells that burnt plastic scent again, and he’s all ready to stop, drop, and roll.
The End
There are actually two versions of the original story, "Countdown", one in reverse (like the Remix) and one in chronological order. I like them both a lot, but one of the things I liked most about the reverse version is that the story starts with Pyro and peels away layers of him until he's just John again. As I've said many times before, one of the reasons I like Pyro in the movieverse so much is because of his identity issues, and the way he wants to be one thing and doesn't want to be another and, in reality, he's both and even more.
Title: Count (the Burn) Down (The Stop, Drop, and Roll Remix)
Author: Carla (escritoireazul)
Summary: Pyro’s been waiting his whole life.
Rating: 17+ for language
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Warnings: language, het, slash
Spoilers: Through X2
Title, Author and URL of original story: Countdown by Ion Bond, written for remix_redux
V.
The studded lip fucking hurts when she smashes her mouth into his.
Pyro doesn’t know her name.
Really, that’s the last thing on his mind, when her hands are under his shirt, her nails scraping across his stomach. He can feel the heat of his skin warm her, until her fingers are hot enough to scald.
She presses him up against a tree, grinds his back against the bark. He might be bleeding beneath his shirt, but he doesn’t care, he can’t, not when she dips her hand into his pants, her fingers scrabbling over the button fly and the zipper.
“Fuck,” he hisses into her mouth when her hand closes around him, and she jams her tongue between his teeth. She’s pierced there, too, and it’s shockingly cold for approximately one and a half seconds.
Then it’s hot, it’s all so fucking hot they’re fucking steaming, and her hand is slick against him, and his dick is on fire. She bites his lip, rubs their faces together, the metal in hers scraping against him, and her thumb presses down against the tip of his dick, rubs a fire circle.
There, in the middle of the forest, all the trees so immanently flammable, all ready to go up in a burst, a flash fire, the mutants gather, so many of them, so ready for anything, ready for the big grand plans.
Pyro fingers his lighter, presses his teeth against her throat, breaths steam and liquid flame against her skin. He can hear the others, milling and posturing and all waiting for the sign, their fucking messiah to raise his hands and send them out into the world, individual bits of kindling all waiting to be lit.
He comes so hard, burns so hot there should be lava everywhere, a fucking river of it, but she hangs on, jerks at him until he’s soft and weak and the only reason he stays upright is because he’s caught between her and the tree, ancient wood ready to burn and her pieces of metal and flesh.
“Gotta light?” she asks, wipes her hand clean on the bottom of his shirt..
“Dude,” Pyro says, and grins, and reaches for her pants, tugs open the button and slips his hand inside, “do I ever.”
IV.
Mystique scares the fucking crap out of him.
Doesn’t stop him from getting hard every time she walks by, and it doesn’t stop him from staring, sometimes out of the corner of his eyes, sometimes overtly, every time she breathes, because her chest rises and falls so nice, those breasts of hers full and heavy and she’s naked, she’s always fucking naked, even when she looks like she’s wearing clothes, she’s not, it’s just her skin, changeable, bare.
It probably makes it better, the fear, because she could kick his ass any time she wanted, could take him out before he even got his lighter open, and he probably wouldn’t even try to stop her so long as she touched him, put her hands on his body.
Certainly helps pass the time, that razor edge between attraction and terror. Otherwise it’s pretty boring here, the only screams are from the little kids playing in the street, fake fear and impotent anger insubstantial like the shadows.
Magneto always goes to buy the groceries, and he’s dumb about it, almost every time he goes after lunch and that’s siesta time or something. There aren’t even any cars outside the cement wall; except for the kids, who never take a break, the whole world sounds dead.
The old man’s gonna come home empty handed and pissed off. Pyro can’t wait. It’s fucking hilarious, the little things which set him off, and it’s really, really hot when he picks a fight with Mystique. They don’t even really fight, she just stares at him, all insolent, her body stretched out and languid.
She doesn’t rest either, he knows, she’s a big scary cat and she could take off their heads at any moment. That’s why it’s so hot.
Sweat drips down his chest and back, collects at the waistband of his jeans. The sun is high and blistering, but the garden still feels like an oasis. It could be anywhere, protected by the high walls, and maybe that’s why they’re there, where they could be other places, all places, nowhere at all, it’s all the same.
Pyro’s alone with Mystique, and he likes that just fine. She’s reading a book, even though the sunlight bouncing off the pages is enough to blind him from across the table. There’s a beer sitting in front of her, local stuff, and the iron table feels hot enough to make it boil.
“Mind if I smoke?” Pyro asks, and pulls out a half-crushed pack from his pocket. It’s slightly damp, and mostly crumpled though the cigarettes aren’t broken.
Mystique puts down her book, sets it open across her lap. No wonder the spine looks almost broken. She watches him for a second, her face expressionless, her eyes-the same color as her beer-narrowed. “Knock yourself out. Do I look like your mom?”
He pulls out a cigarette and puts it between his lips, his movements slow. He thinks about staring at her outright, just watching her, letting his eyes linger on her breasts. If she stretched at all, leaned toward him, did anything except fucking look at him, he would, but she’s scariest when she watches him, like she knows him, like she can read his mind, like there’s not a goddamn thing he can do that she hasn’t already done.
Like he’s a kid, whether she looks like his mom or not.
(Which, for the record, she doesn’t. His mom was boring and normal and plain. No matter how Mystique looks, woman or man, she’s none of those things. She’ll never be those things, could never be those things, even if she tried.
Someday he’s going to learn her tricks.)
Instead he flicks his lighter, takes a deep drag, and, when she picks up her book again at last, casts a quick glance at her breasts out of the corner of his eyes. He already knows he’ll think about this tonight, when she’s in her room, and he’s half draped out his window to catch a fucking breeze.
In his mind, it will go different, he’ll be different, he’ll be suave and dominant and he’ll know just how to seduce her so he can fuck her across the table. He’ll see this eyes, those Corona-colored eyes, in his mind when he comes.
“Thanks,” he says, and if she thinks he’s talking about letting him smoke, well, it’s probably better that way.
III.
John fucking hates Rogue. What the hell kind of name is that anyway, Rogue? Shit, he’s seen more creative things on Saturday morning cartoons. He hates her stupid accent, all those long vowels, and he hates those crappy white streaks in her hair, which could be covered with dye but no, she thinks she’s so goddamn special, and he really, really hates the way she touches Bobby. As if she couldn’t kill him with a kiss, as if she has a right.
He sucks deep on his cigarette, holds the smoke inside until his lungs burn. He’d like to set her on fire, pour some of it down her throat until she can’t talk anymore, until she can’t look all fragile and shit, and make Bobby want to protect her.
Bobby coughs, blows on his fingers until they’re frosted with white, and pinches his cigarette. Once it’s out, he throws it on the ground, and then glances around real quick, like they’re gonna get caught.
“Shit.” John kicks the dirt. “That’s one long-ass butt. What a waste, what a goddamn waste. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Bobby?”
“Maybe I don’t want to get lung cancer,” Bobby says, all defensive and shit. He snags an arm around Rogue’s waist and glares at John. “You ever think of that?”
“Baby, I cause lung cancer,” John throws his head back, careful not to crack his skull on the brick wall. He shouldn’t have said that, he can see the way Bobby tenses, but he didn’t mean it like that, it just came out.
He knows that’s not the way they are - the way they were, because Bobby’s sure around a lot less since Rogue showed up.
“You already gave him the cigarette. He wasn’t going to give it back. You wouldn’t even want it then, he slobbers all over the end.” Marie shoves at Bobby, puts her elbow in his side. She plays rough, that girl, and what does she know about Bobby or his slobber or what John wants. “What do you care if he’s too much of a wimp to smoke the whole thing?”
“Whatever.” John snaps his Zippo open and shut, open and shut. “He just does it to make me mad.”
Bobby frowns at him, pulls out the old little boy lost face, the who, me? expression. Like he doesn’t know what he’s done, what he does every single time he puts his arm around Rogue. Every time he talks about her as if John gives a flying fuck.
“It’s not all about you,” Rogue says, and sighs. Her breath is filled with smoke, visible in the air like it’s cold, like she’s just kissed Bobby.
John will never tell a fucking soul, but he loves that, the freeze, the way his breath steams when it meets Bobby’s, the way Bobby can cool him down and make it so hot at the same time.
“Whatever,” he says again, and squeezes his lighter until it hurts.
Rogue snorts and stubs out her cigarette. She’s smoked it all the way to the filter, no wasted fire and paper and tobacco there. “I mean it. You probably have some kind of complex, though. You should look into that. Maybe Dr. Grey can help. She needs to stay busy.”
There’s a quick expression he can’t read, some twist of her face. He doesn’t know what or why, but it sure looks kind of the way he feels whenever she touches Bobby, just her thin glove between them to keep him safe.
“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” John says, and lights another cigarette, keeps the flame going for awhile. He likes to watch his lighter burn. “So glad you’re here to impart your vast wisdom.”
Bobby smiles at her, squeezes her waist. “Not possible. Only rich kids have complexes.” He looks past her, meets John’s eyes. “Right, Pyro?”
As if Bobby knows anything about not being rich. As if Bobby knows anything about him. “Damn straight,” John says, his thumb on his flint.
II.
That Drake kid is so damn annoying John doesn’t know what to do with him. He’s finally ditched him, though, left him in the library, and now he’s hiding behind the greenhouse, alone at last, trying real hard not to cough.
The cigarette smoke is thick and clings to him when he exhales, like it likes him or something.
The school sucks, he already knows that, and he’s not going to make any friends. He doesn’t want to make any friends, especially since the only guy who talked to him is that stupid Drake with his stupid ice tricks.
(A cool soda would taste so good right now, but John doesn’t let himself think about that too long. He’s enjoying his cigarette, it tastes great, he loves to smoke. He does.)
When he left, he didn’t want to be at home anymore, but he’s sorry he burned his bridges back there, real and imaginary, because he really doesn’t want to be here, either. Here stinks, all shiny, clean, and fake.
He sees Dr. Grey - the hot teacher, and he almost told her she had a great ass the first time he saw her, wanted to, wanted to set himself up right away as this cool tough guy, but he just couldn’t do it - through the glass.
She’s heading in his direction, walking fast, and he throws the cigarette at the ground. No one said anything about not smoking, but he’s pretty sure it’s one of those implied rules.
He tries to wave the smoke away, but she turns around all of a sudden, heads back toward the mansion like she forgot something. Finally, he’s gotten lucky, just a little bit.
It’s a nice thought, getting lucky with her, but he doesn’t focus on it. If he did, he’d have to find some private place to take care of himself, and he doesn’t have his own room here. Not that he had one back home, either, but at least his mom and her boyfriends weren’t around very often.
Dr. Grey must not have noticed him, he’ll have to remember this hiding place. He picks up the cigarette, and it’s still burning. His fingertips tingle, and he could pull the fire out of it, make it something bigger.
Instead he puts the tip to his lips and tries to inhale without coughing. Smoking tastes good, he tells himself.
Don’t make it a habit.
Shit, now he’s hearing things. He shakes his head, but there’s nothing else foreign in his thoughts.
He can pretend, anyway, all sorts of things.
I.
“You stink.” Anthony Perry pushes him. “Move over.”
John pulls his sleeping bag tighter around his body. He can’t go far, there’s a big coffee table at his back, and he doesn’t really want to get up off the clean white carpet in Keith Frye’s living room. It’s a birthday party, all night long, and he’s had a good time, even if few of the other kids talk to him much.
“What’s wrong?” Keith’s mom asks. John doesn’t know when she came into the room, but she’s standing near them, and the light is at her back so he can’t see her face.
“His sleeping bag smells weird,” Anthony whines and John wants to hit him.
“You smell weird!” Something smells bad, like when he burns the plastic off his mom’s cigarette packs with her lighter and it melts into a twisted mess. He’s burning up, can almost feel blisters on his hands.
“Do not! You stink!” Anthony shoves him again, and John pushes back, but Keith’s mom is right there.
“Hey, there’s plenty of room, let’s all spread out a little,” she says, and she looks so clean and smells so good that John wants to listen to her. She has a nice smile, and when she turns it on him, he can’t imagine saying no.
John’s mom is smoking when she picks him up, her favorites are Camels, but she’ll smoke anything if she has no choice. She watches him in quick little glances when he tells her about Anthony, and she stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray before he’s done.
“Good for you, sticking up for yourself,” she says, but she looks kind of guilty.
The whole car stinks of smoke, too, and John rolls his window down, and then has her roll them all down, but that doesn’t help.
When John sees Anthony at school, he smells that burnt plastic scent again, and he’s all ready to stop, drop, and roll.
The End